troubling answers. alex? >> mike says i'm has troubling . >> i'm admitted in the hospital, in so much pain, but i still can't miss "way too early." >> it's a numbing agent, mainly for the brain but a numbing agent. >> i'm up early mending my red spandex bodysuit. >> were you the fan on the field? do we have that video. the full spandex bodysuit taken out by the atlanta braves. and we'll be back with more on jimmy carter. >> the last photo of you with your fellow former presidents, you were well off to the side on the right. do you feel listened to? do you feel that you receive your due or do you feel, in fact, apart from the crowd? >> no. i feel that my role as a former president is probably superior

to that of other presidents, primarily because of the activism and injection of working international affairs and to some degree, domestic affairs on energy conservation and environment and things of that kind. we're right in the midst of constant daily debate. and the carter center has decided, under my leadership, to fill vacuums in the world. when the united states won't deal with troubled areas, we go there and meet with leaders who can bring an end to conflict or human rights abuse and so forth. i feel we have an advantage over many other former presidents involved in daily affairs that shape the policies of the nation and the world. >> wow! >> okay. >> wow! >> welcome to "morning joe."

>> 6:00 on the east coast. >> a long morning for mika. >> he's your guy. >> you don't have to say anything. >> but the tapes speak. >> well -- >> mike barnicle, i guess that just confirmed what all the former presidents thought about jimmy carter? >> yeah. including the late great speaker of the house, tip o'neil. >> thought that about jimmy carter? bitter, angry, humorless individual. >> other than that, tip got along with him famously. >> plus all his achievements. >> then he went on the view and defended savage and teddy kennedy. what is that special quality about jimmy carter that seems to emerge every few years that explain to us why he was beaten so soundly in 1980? >> well, he feels, i think it's safe to say, unappreciat unappreciated -- not

underappreciated, unappreciated. as we all know, you don't get to be president by having a deficit of grandosty. right, that's not a qualification for the job. all of these guys have that to some degree or another. some hide it better than others. i think as president carter gets older, he hides it not at all. >> so you're saying, not as as well as others? >> not at all. >> let's put the whole story aut there, for what it's worth. by the way, in washington this morning -- >> begins in plains. >> we have with us, a proposal historian, michael. he said, basically, after these comments aired yesterday, because, you know, president carter is on a media blitz for his book, "white house diary." he says this, what i meant was for 27 years, any carter center has provided me with superior opportunities to do good. >> if we can just say, that is

the worst clarification -- >> i'm not going to defend that argument. michael, could you argue that some might believe he is one of the better or best former presidents, in terms of doing good out there? >> yeah. setting aside the question, mika, whether you or i would have said we were the most superior person on earth if we were asked -- >> please. >> you can make a pretty good argument. by the way, it drives carter crazy when people call him the best ex-president, sort of like saying you have the best restaurant in a hospital. >> that's pretty good. >> probably not wrong. but, you know, carter could probably say if it weren't for him, you wouldn't have clinton creating the global initialtive or george bush creating a center in texas. he has created a model for the later ex-presidency. it shows you so much about

carter. he says these things and later on, in a way, pull it back, as he did in that statement. when he says it, it gives you an idea what's deeply on his mind. remember in the 1970s, he said, if ted kennedy runs against me in 1980, i'll whip his ass? he does have a tendency to say these things and even more later on. as jon meachem will tell you, he and i were at a symposium, three year anniversary, inauguration at the university of georgia. jon was monitoring one of these panels. if jon said something he disagreed with, carter would get up and say, i disagree with you and you're all wrong about my administration. he does this more now that he's 86 years old. >> i think you told me in that symposium, somebody on stage said, it may have been dr. brzezinski, you tell me the story -- finish this story about

iran. he was the only one that saw it coming. >> michael is exactly right. it was a pretty glamorous weekend, i want to say. michael and i were down in athens, georgia, we were watching c-span in the hilton. it was pretty glamorous, pretty exciting. so i was on a stage with dr. brzezinski, madeline ail bring it -- albright, and it was about the middle east policy. at some moment, iran was in the news and admiral turner said we didn't know enough about islam and the region to really understand the hostage crisis. president carter raises his hand and he says, jon, may i come up? i said, they're all your helicopters, sir, sure, you're the president. he comes up and he says, i understood everything about iran. that's just not -- that's just not the case. the other thing about this, this

is when he wrote the book with apartheid in the title, about palestine. the first question i asked, of the panelists, have you read president carter's book, what do you think? they all said, no, we haven't read his book. president carter got up and said, i'm so sorry they haven't read my book because i've read all theirs. so it was a happy moment. >> as mike barnicle, that story was being recounted, there was somebody on this set who's actually lived through that time period, and rather uncomfortable. we won't ask her whether that was as she remembered it. >> the former president was on "the view." we'll show that later. >> i just want to go to mike for a second. michael tells us, mike barnicle, there are good things jimmy carter has given, gave clinton perhaps an idea for the clinton global initiative and george w. bush his ideas for his post

presidency, gave the north koreans nuclear weapons, i mean, there are a lot of positive spins, a lot of mitigating factors here to offset the arrogance. i can't keep it straight through the whole thing. >> that was good. >> as usual, that's an excellent point, joe. >> he did get a nobel prize. >> that he deserved. >> nuclear weapons need to be in north korea. >> theologian act. >> natural list. >> killer rabbit. >> is it possible that because when history is recorded, as it is being recorded, let's start with michael, historian, we have john here a mini historian. >> mini historian, he's won the pulitzer prize, for god's sake. >> i know, but he has so many side jobs. is it possible, michael, when history is recorded 40, 50 years from now, this 50 year chunk of

american history from 1960 to 2010, that the carter presidency will be virtually unnoticed by history? >> very possibly, especially because the guy didn't get re-elected. as you know well, mike, we talked about this, american history does not usually treat presidents well who don't manage to do that. it was four years, as most people remember ended in a very bad economy, 21% interest rates and soviet invasion of afghanistan and the hostage crisis and carter might say those things would probably have happened whoever was president during those years and the argument he will make for himself, he was very good on human rights, might have contributed to the end of the cold war and made tough decisions that might have caused him not to get re-elected in 1980. against the backdrop of 50 years, it will probably not loom very large and that's why i think he is so ambitious to do a lot as an ex-president and to

make sure, as you saw yesterday, make sure all of us know it. >> on a very serious point, you can look at -- speaking of one term presidents, you can look at the arc of jimmy carter's career from january 20th, 1981 forward and compare it in stark contrast to the arc of george herbert walker bush's post presidency from january 20th, 1993. it is hard to go anywhere with people that have -- in our business and people that have had brushes with these ex-presidents, to not hear of jimmy carter. this is no surprise, that he is a bitter man and a small man. at the same time, i can't find anybody who doesn't say george w. bush, at least in this community, is a great man, is a gracious man, is a man who never

talks about himself. maybe to barbara, maybe to poor barbara. maybe she has to hear it every night. let me tell you something. when that plane was spiraling toward the specific, i had two choices. >> not likely. >> but that is not him. >> right. >> what an amazing contrast. >> bring this up because michael's talking about one term presidents aren't remembered by history. george w. bush seems to gr grow -- he seems to be the one giant, the one giant on this stage, the one great man left. in american politics. what did you call mim? >> the last gentleman. >> the last gentleman. >> i do think that's true. i think that -- i think carter's presidency will be seen as a pivot point. you had this moment where the country comes out of watergate, comes out of the imperial presidency --

>> vietnam. >> and basically, michael, do you agree with this, basically experiments with, all right, let's have a quieter presidency. let's see if what we all say we want when we disagree with a strong president. when we disagree with a strong president, we're all for legislative power, when we ask grow wi grow -- disagree with a strong president, we're all for that and created the possibility for reagan. carter didn't win by much, another four or five counties in ohio. >> or texas. >> mississippi. >> that's right. mississippi. >> it was close. >> i didn't go there, actually, from 1976, to -- i try -- and i love mississippi. >> it doesn't work. >> you're saying that as a -- i love mississippi but i did have a 20 yeear ban after they put jimmy over the top. >> the two contrasting ex-presidency, to some extent

are more, i think carter and ford than carter and bush, in this sense. president ford really went out, became a more corporate figure, did a lot of -- >> golfing. >> golfing, for a fee. and president ford is a great man and all that. but he was not building houses, you know. he was at the men's grill. so president carter is in contrast to that. president bush 41 made a conscious decision he was not going to talk about his successors. one happened to be his son. he also gets credit for not talking about bill clinton. i think that is a key, key element. carter, throughout, he criticized reagan, he wrote a secret letter to the u.n. security council against the gulf war, the first gulf war. he called president bush 43's presidency the worst in history.

the best analogy we have for that is another one term president, hecrbert hoover. >> michael, is it a little unfair though not to look at his actions as a former president, how he traveled to all ends of the world, got his hands dirty, got exhausted and put his own heart and sweat into real building homes -- >> that's part of what makes him superior. >> opposed to other presidents you talk about who might be traveling on private planes to comfortable locations, getting paid a great deal of money for speeches. let's not pair it down to one soundby soundbyte. >> and give incomians nuclear weapons. >> setting all that aside, joe, the ex-presidents before carter mainly did play golf. after carter, if an ex-president does play golf, it doesn't look great. he really has remade the job in a way that probably is a very

good thing. >> so, really, basically, willie, he's ruined it for all ex-presidents. for everybody, michael. >> a moral scourge, just like mika. michael beshalof, thank you so much. we called you late last night after this news broke and thank you for coming here. kind of like willie geist, the host and founder of "way too early." willie and i were commenting that having you and meachem here talking is kind of like hanging out in the hilton in athens, georgia, smoking cigarettes, listening to the giants talk. >> only meachem can find a way not to have fun in athens, georgia. >> i was a witness. >> i was a witness to his boredom. >> the dullness. >> maybe on the verge of another vacation by the end of this

week. also, oh, god -- >> what's that? >> terry mcauliffe will be here. and when mascots go bad, the incident that has the university apologizing this morning, that's ahead in sports. oh, dear. that's joe. what were you doing there? president carter attacking bill clinton. >> stop. it bill, please take it away. >> good morning, everyone. it's a chilly amorning in areas of new england. you will probably turn the heater heading to your car, philadelphia, northward. look at hartford, 42 degrees, a chilly day. a lot of sunshine and temperature perfect. temperatures 70 near 80 degrees. much of the country very hostile. new england the exception, very warm from dallas to florida, through the new england valley. a lot of people have their air

conditioners on. look at chicago, 87 degrees. for everyone on the east coast, tomorrow, one more day of summer temperatures and you will cool off. you're watching ""morning joe"," brewed by starbucks.

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kurt warner. bristol palin and mike "the situation" from "jersey shores." will hopefully during the course of the show, make bristol palin pregnant. how great would that be? >> all righty. 21 past the hour. let's look at the morning papers. "usa today" delivered a verdict monday that may surprise nearly 15 million unemployed americans. the recession ended more than a year ago. happy days again, gitmo and iraq, dominated elections in recent years but nowhere to be found in this year's national campaign debate, all about the economy. in the "new york times" say they're determined to chip away at the obama health care law, even if they cannot dismantle it despite facing political and

unpractical hurdles in undoing a law whose provisions are going rapidly into effect. a lab tweaked salmon grows twice as fast as live fish and could appear on dinner plates. reminds me, i have to say, christine mcdonald was reminding us of this in 1997 when she talked about maoist with fully formed human brains. >> that is a challenge. >> do we have that clip, chris? a lot of people make fun of her but she was calling this. >> she saw it coming, so her credit. >> a fully functioning -- was it fully functioning maoist brain is in humans? >> they're injecting human brains into maoist. he -- into mice. here it is. >> they are -- they are doing that here in the united states. american scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and

animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. >> there's dolly. there was dolly. >> was that the sheep? >> is that real? >> that happened. >> margaret carlson from bloomberg news. >> that wasn't like from 1984, when she was on the satanic altar having her first high school date, that was in '07. fully functioning -- can we play that again, chris? i have to get the quote right. what was the quote again? we'll play it again for everybody. i want to write this down. >> all craziness is gone. >> they are doing that here in the united states. american scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human

brains. >> crossbreeding mice and -- >> you're transcribing. >> functioning -- >> play it one more time. i swear, i'll finish it one more time. >> all craziness. >> they are doing it in the united states. american scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. >> okay. didn't get all of it. >> how did that not make any papers, if there were mice with human brains, seems like we would have heard about it. >> fully functioning mice. that's the thing. >> what are we doing here then? >> if it's just a mouse, margaret carlton, sitting in a cage, it's not as scary as a fully functioning mouse with a human brain. >> the whole gamut, this mice runs the whole gamut. >> this mice runs and either.

>> a searing piece on this woman is called "watch your back, sarah." i'm sorry, it's a little -- >> a little harsh? >> i'm sorry. margaret. this is how we get in trouble. >> margaret carlson, tell us. >> no. i was suggesting that -- >> you more than suggest. >> that christine o'donnell is what the republican party has been heading to a long time. she's post sarah palin. with a fully -- >> no, no, barbara -- i'll read it. >> with not a fully functioning human brain. >> that's not fair. >> this where is the elite. >> you go below the belt. >> this is where the elites will be getting out the e-mail right now to me. she's not -- she's not really ready for this. i think she's more fluent than sarah palin what she says comes out better and you can parse it.

she's copping her act. already, she's putting on the glasses. she doesn't need them except for cosmetic reasons. >> have to say to the founder of "way too early", this is fabulous. we've had in the past two days on "morning joe" discussions about witchcraft, satanic altars, blood, masturbation and jimmy carter, fully functioning human brains. >> what a country. >> our sweet spot. >> what a country. >> we have hit our sweet spot. willie geist, how do you explain this? when tea party candidates run afoul, right? they always call you up and ask for your advice. what's your advice? >> think she needs to walk back the witchcraft stuff because the wiccan community came strong against mrs. o'donnell. if she loses the wiccan vote,

she's in trouble. now, let's go to mike. how are you? >> good morning, sun shines. >> we'll leave you out of this conversation and move on to something else. looks like the house of representatives will make a little history perhaps as early as this week. tell us about it. >> they do. they're rushing to the exits. know the more time they spend in washington, the less time to campaign. as of today, 42 days to the mid-term elections. leaders are thinking of cutting the sessions short as much as three weeks short, going home friday if they're able to pass the spending bills if they want to, the first time since 1960 the house has gone home before september 30th. >> you know what else they're leaving town not doing? taking care of 9/11 first responders. cops and firefighters from new york city can't get an up or down majority vote in the house

of representatives, margaret. it's stunning. the republicans are acting badly by not supporting this en masse but nancy pelosi won't put this up for a straight up or down vote for a political reason. >> it's an internal fight among congressman over nothing and meantime -- this is like a -- this is an example of just how broken the congress is, when it's in everybody's interests, including the fighting congressman to pass this legislation because they look like bad guy, they can look like good guys for voting for something really non-controversial. >> it's not. it's so deep in the weeds, i won't get it into but nbc news has already reported the hispanic caucus says they're not going to support it because there's illegal immigrant provision that republicans may tack on. they don't want to embarra embarrass -- they don't want to embarrass southern blue dogs that will vote against it because it's new york city.

new york cops and firefighters are the ones suffering. the guys and women you spent a month around after september 11th, 2001. is that not staggering how quickly congress has forgotten them? >> the power of 9/11 has receded for them in that you would think they would do it immediately. >> mike, thank you very much. still ahead, terry mcauliffe and south carolina gubernatorial candidate, nikki haley, robert reich and michael eisner. you know what got a response to the saints and 49ers, this was decided on the last play. complete highlights when we come back. >> we got such a response to our keep calm and carry on segment, a lot of e-mails. >> a lot of hate from the far left and far left. >> i got presents. [ female announcer ] sometimes you need tomorrow

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can earn you a free night -- words alone aren't enough. our job is to listen and find ways to help workers who lost their jobs to the spill. i'm iris cross. we'll keep restoring the jobs, tourist beaches, and businesses impacted by the spill. we've paid over $400 million in claims and set up a $20 billion independently-run claims fund. i was born in new orleans. my family still lives here. i'm gonna be here until we make this right.

6:34 on the east coast. welcome back to "morning joe." n nato say 9 service members were

killed in a helicopter crash with pressure ramping up from taliban soldiers and a u.s. army soldier and u.s. civilian were hurt. the crash is still under investigation. new figures show the drick senatorial campaign committee outraised its republican counterpart last month, taking in over $7.42 million compared to the gop's $6 million. still, the gop has more money in the bank overall, just six weeks before mid-term elections. authorities in brazil say over 100 people were hurt when bleachers collapsed at a car race this week. they're still trying to determine the exact cause. some think it had structural faults that caused them to give way. that is a quick look at the news. we get to sports now. monday night football,

hosting the 49ers, the saints, alex smith with a 12 yard touchdown pass, frank gore with a nice catch, sneaks into the corner of the end zone. saints lead 9-7 at that point. drew brees had a good game, putting the saints up, drew brees with two touchdowns, no interceptions. a scary moment for saints fans, reggie bush muffs the catch and as he dives to recover it, muffs his knee. he did not return to the game. some initial reports say there might be a broken bone there. he might be out six weeks, reggie bush, one of the big stars. down by eight in the game. frank gore, seven yard touchdown. niners go for two to tie the game. first, they say no two point

conversion, they say vernon was outside the end zone. but it's overplayed. in the replay booth, they gave him the two points. that's close. brees leading the saints down the field, the winning drive, a completion to marcus colson, setting up the field goal here, partially blocked at the line of scrimmage but still sneaks through, saints win the game, 25-22. >> san francisco is getting better, right? the super bowl champion. >> they are 0-2 at this point. they're getting better. >> reggie bush, that could be a huge loss for the saints. baseball, huge series last night. before the game, bud selig, don mattingly, and, yes, joe torre, back in new york, returning to pay tribute to the late geor

georgestegeorge stein brenner. they unfailed a monument to sign brenner. he brought eight world series titles to the bronx. 2-0 lead, yankees up, 4-0, but blew it. rays came back to tie the game at four. to the sixth. a three-run home run. 8-4 lead, yankees win 8-6, a game and a half up on the rays in the east. >> who's the better team? >> think tampa bay is. they might finish second and get the wildcard. >> what do you think, willie? >> i think the yankees have a better lineup but their pitching is suspect. they don't want to go on the road. it's always philly with a story like this. remember the taser incident? >> why would you show this again? it's gratuitous.

>> no, no, it's important context. he's tased. to last night's game. this time in a full body red spandex suit. look at this! he's trying to get away from security guards. braves outfielder, matt diaz steps and takes him down with a trip. yeah, that's the braves' outfielder. diaz said, i saw this idiot coming right after me and figured he'd be better off getting tripped than tased. tips his cap to the ground. this is a very important story. the biggest action from college football over the weekend may have happened before kickoff in the heated ohio-ohio state intrastate rivalry game. mascot on mascot violence. this is ruff fuss the bobcat at ohio university charging brutus.

ruff fuss follows him to the end zone and wrestles him to the ground. he's not kidding, this is not an act, trying to beat up brutus on his home-field. and the university is now apologizing for the mascot, saying that student who was dressed and rufus the bobcat now has a lifetime ban from all school athletic events. >> nothing sadder than mascot on mascot. this has to come to an end. >> really quickly -- >> funny you should bring this up, we got such a reaction to the commentary segment, we will have a quiz coming up and perhaps the mascot will be our first example. >> love that. game show on news show. >> where are the prizes? >> what are the prizes? >> i've got prizes. people started sending me stuff.

in a few minutes, bristol palin's debut on "dancing with the stars." was she able to hang with the situation? you're watching "morning joe." >> the dress couldn't be shorter, could it, or could it be? please help me welcome a long-time friend of glencoe baseball. a man who played second base here some 45 years ago. actually, 47. ladies and gentlemen, mr. larry mccarthy. amidst today's financial ups and downs, our sophisticated wealth transfer strategies... and philanthropic expertise can ensure your legacy... is passed on to family or your favorite pastime. ♪

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i want to thank you for what you said, because this is a country that's getting a little uncivil. i think it's really important that we actually talk to each other, because we're not solving problems through the shouting way. >> dr. jeffrey saks responding to our message. >> he wasn't the only one. >> calling out the professional left and far right.

just to kind of calm everybody down because we find and we found in new hampshire this past weekend, we've seen it everywhere from maine to south florida and alabama, west. americans are tired of all the screaming and shouting, we're trying to encourage to keep calm. important is it not, proposal historian? >> i would expect nothing less. >> you got a lot of response to that. >> he's a pulitzer prize winner. >> what else do you need? >> you got a response yourself. what happened? >> agot a big bag of gifts. >> a big bag of love. >> excuse me? from decorative things.com. napkins, christmas ornaments. they're great gifts or prizes. >> prizes. >> i got a hat. look at this. golf balls. no.

do not give that away. a t-shirt. >> mika and i had this idea because, you know, it's against the ethical standards of msnbc for us to actually keep gifts. i'm sorry. >> i'm going to snag this apron. willie, you want the apron? >> mike barnicle tells me he spends like nights at home alone in his man cave -- >> quizzing? >> no. watching match game 75 reruns with nipsey russell. >> i understand. >> interacting with the tv while it's on mute. >> exactly. we decided we will have a quiz. >> i'll give out the prizes, i'll be vanna. >> i'll play pat sajak. >> here we go. we had a flip before hand. mike barnicle won the toss. he decided to lead. you will defend the golf. are you ready? >> yes.

>> this is a good one. >> question. if you're a former speaker of the house and you want to keep calm and carry on, do you compare one of the world's great religions to naziism and compare kathleen sa bibillus to a nazi? >> can i have a lifeline? >> yes. be calm about it. >> okay. i have an answer. yes. >> i am sorry, mike barnicle. >> don't get the hat. >> you don't get the hat. >> that was a trick question. >> try another one. >> let's see if willie does a little better and see if tj does a little better. >> all right. here we go. golf balls, willie, are you ready?

question. if you're a liberal radio and tv talk show host and your goal is to stay calm and hold on, do you say to a liberal politician who just had a heart attack, quote, we ought to rip his heart out and stuff it back in. >> is it life-threatening or cost his life? >> life-threatening. he's still alive. these guys aren't that good at this. >> it's a new game. >> yes. you said threatening. >> no. i'm sorry. the buzzer! you stopped the match game music and then you hit the buzzer for dramatic effect! >> try meacham. >> this is hard. >> you watch too much cable news and talk radio. jon meacham, you're a pulitzer prize winner, let's try you. >> okay.

>> question. if you're a conservative cable news host and your goal is to keep caulk and carry on, do you accuse the president of the united states, who happens to be a democrat, of being a fascist, nazi, marxist and quote racist who hates white people. >> come on! >> all at once? >> no. it is an a rapid succession of tearful sermons. >> right. with hair on fire. >> can i call beschlos? >> no. >> you and him together are like mixing ambient and tylenol, you're out for hours. >> they said yes, i will say, no. >> you are correct. >> there we go. it's cocktail night. >> give him the hat, too. >> because we're going back to barnicle. >> are you ready for the last

question? >> mike. >> question. for the t-shirt. if you're a liberal cable host and you want to keep calm and carry on, do you accuse the president of the united states, who happens to be a republican, of being a fascist and a liar, who urine urinates on the constitution. i would suggest urinates on the constitution as well as liar and fascist would be a good clue for you. >> come on, give me the t-shirt. >> buzzer. >> it happens all the time. >> we have reeducating to do. >> we do. >> listen, we have a lot more prizes here. we will keep the calm and carry on quiz going in the future. before we go to break, a follow-up on the christine o'donnell mouse thing, you have

an e-mail from a viewer who calls me out. >> hello, chuck e. cheese. >> we have to set it up better than that, chris. >> that was funny. >> didn't have it up. i didn't know we were going to it. >> the mouse with the fully functioning human brain, hello, chuck e. cheese. >> that's better. >> we'll be right back with proposal historians and pulitzer prize winners and important things like that. >> terry mcauliffe will be here. my name is vonetta, and i suffer from allergies. [ male announcer ] we asked zyrtec® users what they love about their allergy relief, and what it lets them do. the thing i love most about zyrtec® is that it allows me to be outside. [ male announcer ] we bet you'll love zyrtec®, too -- or it's free. [ vonetta ] it is countdown to marshmallow time. [ woman laughs ]

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please tell me it's time. >> time for "news you can't use." where else but "dance with the stars." >> i've never seen it. i watched last night with kate. >> did you watch bristol palin? she started with a politicians conservative suit, kind of a take on her mother and then into the flapper dress and did the e viennese waltz. let's listen to bristol and what she wants to get done on this show. >> silly zblrchlts. >> yes! don't tell me you can't do it,

bristol. only a few days left. just have fun. >> if i can do half of what mark has told me, bring some sexy to the cha-cha and don't embarrass my mom, i'll be thrilled. >> doesn't want to embarrass her mom. >> i actually felt sorry for her last night. she's very uncomfortable. this guy was trying to get her to do things -- >> she's not comfortable. she wanted to play conservative. she got 19 out of a possible 30 which isn't a great score apparently. the other guy not so good, "the situation" from jersey shore. in his defense, he's only been there a week practicing. he's out doing whatever he does, a busy guy in show business. he can't rehearse. >> he has calls to make. >> he came out with a first pump, did signature jersey shore news. only got a 15 out of 30, one of the worst than what bristol palin did. florence henderson was on the show, carol brady of course.

she issued a challenge, "the situation" is famous for his six-pack. >> his sumi? >> look out, mr. situation. >> hello! >> there's carol brady. >> she actually stacks up against the situation. >> my goodness! >> all done. >> you know, actually, the surprise last night, margaret cho? >> margaret cho moved very greasefully. she did a couple of gags she judges didn't get. >> dude, seriously, that's the first time i've seen it. she was -- said she always felt like an ugly duckling growing up -- i was going to say in ugly dumpling which is worst than an ugly duckling because you don't want to be called that. she moved very well and

graceful. >> your clubhouse leader for grey for dancing. she's winning. >> i only saw five minutes. >> she's a travel. >> not really. >> let's stop talking about this. >> terry mcauliffe. >> get your shot glasses out. >> morning brew brewed by starbucks. ♪ [ upbeat instrumental ]

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i'm one of your middle class americans and, quite frankly,

i'm exhausted, i'm exhausted defending you, defending your administration and defending the manual of change i voted for and deeply disappointed where we are right now. i've been told i voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. i'm one of those people and i'm waiting sir. >> i was inspired by your campaign and message you brought and that inspiration is dying away. it feels like the american dream is not attainable. is the american dream dead for me? welcome back to "morning joe." a beautiful shot of somewhere in america. i'm guessing close to new york city. is that jersey? hudson river. >> what a moment. >> here is the day. if you were president of the united states of holding a town hall meeting, that town hall meeting could be very successful. if there's a clip like that or a moment like that, that's what

everybody's going to focus on. actually putting this in proper context, deeply disturbing when you try to do that, the president had high points. mike barnicle, i thought it was a fascinating moment. >> you know something, in an odd way, i think it was good for him to have done it because that first question asked of him, the woman who was so clearly disappointed and what has evolved since the election, i think it's good for the president to hear that rather than hearing from the white house staff, don't worry, things are okay. you would know better. >> it is. also, terry mcauliffe is here with us. terry, it's also good for americans to see the president sit there taking it. he was gracious and smiling and that gives americans a sense he is not living, every president has to live in a bubble, it's good for americans seeing him going out there, taking the hard

hits, smiling and then telling his side of the story, isn't it? >> you bet. people are having a tough time, the economy is in tough shape and peoples lives are difficult. they're feeling bad and want to vent their anger. i think it's good for the domestdrick prdrick -- democratic process. president obama can handle it. >> mika, you have been in television since you were 14, 15. >> many, many years. >> almost a decade now. >> more than two. >> more than two decades. you know television. how did the president do? >> i think that moment hurts. that moment hurts because that's running again and again all day long on cable, on the front page of the new york city post with the big word "betrayed." there's downsides to it. i personally -- maybe i know too much having been a member of the media, i think it was great he

put himself out there and let people pelt him with questions, real people. if he had just done a controlled interview with john harewood,wo would not have been impressed? >> i hope the white house doesn't look at the headlines and seeing the cable news shows playing this clip over and over again, it is the news. it is compelling. if there were a republican president that had that happened to him, he would have been on the front page of the "new york times" in screaming letters. that's part of the game. i hope they do this a lot more. it's good for americans to see their president talk to people hurting. >> i heard yesterday, it was purely cosmetic but it looked like him during the campaign, where he was out with people. it almost reminded people of a different time when there was still the idea of hope and change out there. things are different. he's not standing at a podium, doesn't have the teleprompter,

not handing things down from on high, talking to people. >> this president doesn't like the media, he looks down on the media. >> who does? what president does? >> that's the reality. >> america does. >> most president s don't. what better way to get around -- i was going to say, what better way to get around that than to go through the filter and talk to americans and have people watch? >> again, the first question from that woman, who clearly indicated she was very desperated and exhausted from defending this administration and defending her vote for barack obama, it's great for the president to hear that, because she articulated the feelings of a huge percentage of people we all encounter everyday. >> yeah. >> let's hear the president's response and go to terry and see what he thinks. this is how the president responded to his supporter, saying she felt betrayed.

>> times are tough for everybody right now. so i understand your frustration. my goal here is not to try to convince you everything's where it needs to be. it's not. that's why i ran for president. but what i am saying is we're moving in the right direction. >> terry, is that a winning message and following up on what you just said, how do you pivot from this and that policy. >> that's not the answer people want to hear. >> and make a difference in 300 million people's lives. >> you bet. get the compassion for the woman out there, what she's facing. what are you going to do? that's the big issue. we have a big election coming up. there are clearly choices. you have seen where the democrats have been, financial regulation reform, creating jobs. i'm tired of democrats being human pinatas. they've been that two years. here's what we will do for you. we have a manufacturing bill,

bills on clean energy and republicans don't want any of this, want to get rid of financial regulation. let's talk about health care, we voted for it. you can't find democrats mention it. talk about it. >> nobody believes that creates jobs. >> it will reduce the deficit 1$1.2 trillion over 10 years, co said that. we voted for this legislation, defend it. >> can't do it. >> where are the democrats fighting for what we stood for. we have to get tough. republicans want to go this way, they got us into this hole and stop the digging, get us out of that. >> you still think they should talk about health care when one of the reasons democrats are in trouble is americans believe they were obsessing over health care and they should have been obsessing over creating jobs. >> they should always obsess over creating jobs, green energies, new technology and one thing is the big apollo, allowing south korea and china

to get ahead of us. we're getting lapped on new technologies for green. we voted, a signature issue. you have to defend what you day and tell people where you want to go in the future. republicans want to repeal everything democrats have done. this is a choice in this election. stand up for what you've done and fight for it and tell them what you're going to do going forward. this woman wants answers. >> this is barack obama talking about the end of the recession. >> even though economists may say the recession officially ended last year, obviously for the millions of people still out of work, people who have seen their home values decline and people struggling to pay the bills day-to-day, it's still real for them. >> this is the president talking about the influence of the tea party. >> the challenge, i think for the tea party movement is identify specifically what would you do? it's not enough just to say, get control of spending. what you can't do, which is what

i've been hearing a lot from the other side, saying we will control government spending, propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts and magically, somehow, things are going to work. >> mike barnicle, if you control spending, you're actually doing what americans are doing, you're actually doing what the germans are doing, you're actually doing what a lot of people believe is the only responsible thing to do. it's not like restraint and spending is not a positive message. the president's acting as if that's nothing. it ain't nothing. >> you can tell antidotally, people are saving money now rather than spending money. people of all income groups are saving rather than spending money. the one thing i don't get about the president and people around him, i totally buy into what terry says, whether you're a republican or democrat, you propose it, defend it now in front of the country. what i don't get is why they

seem so ill equipped, this is guy is so articulate to say, i know you're having a tough time now and i know you think probably the country will not give to your children what the country gave you to, but you're wrong. look at what we've done as a country, just go through our history. everyone realizes we live in this very short cable tv 24 hour instant attention span syndrome. this guy and others in public life ought to give americans a history lesson. >> right. >> about what we've done and who we are as a country. we'll get through this. >> also at what stage we are at in america's history. one of the reasons jimmy carter got flattened in 1980, we talked about the specifics, one of the reasons is jimmy carter came at the end of an era, the welfare state era, kept expanding. in 1980, america was ready to hear somebody say, let's get the

government out of the way. barack obama became president the end of another era, that was the era of unbridled american expansion. it started after world war ii, when basically all our competitors had wrecked economies and we've seen -- we have to figure out a way to grow this economy again. this is part of a much better policy. i disagree with his policies and think he's reckless. i think health care was a reckless thing to do and think his spending is more reckless than george w. bush. but like jimmy carter's iranian hostage problem, these are problems on top of a much larger structural crisis we're facing as americans. >> you bet. you may not like the health care, bottom line if you're a democrat, you voted for it, you got it, you got to defend it. you've been in office 21 months. the argument has to be, it took eight years to get us in this

horrible mess, 21 months is not long enough, give us two more years, if we can't get it done in four, throw them all out. that's what elections are for but you have to defend what you've done. >> they need to lean forward. now to msnbc news political director, chuck todd, live at the white house. the white house puts the president out, think he does a fairly good job, one or two voters concerned, that's the headlines in a lot of papers this morning. how are they feeling in their town hall meetings yesterday? >> reporter: i think they always feel good because they think these settings are very god him, he's an hour, not confined to 10 or 15 minutes. it's ironic, they've done these town halls around the country before, it took a town hall in washington d.c. for him to finally face what we've seen in polling, right, a few people giving voice to what we've seen in polling, which is

disappointed supporters. not quite disillusioned, although one did sound pretty disillusioned there, some people saying, hey, i thought i was voting for this. i thought i was defending you on that. i'm not seeing anything. help me out here. i'll be honest, that's the type of -- it may be the president needed to actually hear it. it's one thing to read about it in a poll. it's another thing to see it face to face. i'll be curious to see what kind of impact this has on the president's psyche. >> as a politician, chuck, it stinks that your people say, we used to feel like you were one of us, but you've changed. when you're out on the campaign trail, that stings. is this president so zen, because we've heard if people don't understand his programs or don't think he's going on the right track, for two years, we've been hearing reports trickle out of the white house,

he considers that other people's problems, they just don't get how good i am, to quote him, i'm lebron, baby. do you think the president may start -- might be in a place he's starting to get it, maybe he hasn't done everything right, maybe he hasn't threaded the needle economically? >> reporter: that, he acknowledges to a point. he doesn't politically overacknowledge it. at the press conference, i remember i asked him a question, simply saying, how have you changed washington? you know, he did start to offer up this idea, there's some things we could have done better at the margins. you sit there and say, what do you mean at the margin? come on! some might say, why are you giving anything here? i think he's being a little more reflective now than people realize. i think, again, as you just pointed out, politicians,

particularly presidents, don't hear from voters like that very often. this was a face to face moment. i think this will be more impactful on him than people realize simply because you can read about it all you want, see it in polls all you want, get it face to face, it has a different effect on your psyche. >> it has great impact. mika, that's why i think it's so good -- also politically, i still say it's good for the president of the united states to have americans see somebody calling him out and seeing him responding. i thought he responded gracefully. >> very human but more so in terms of the criticism over the air waves, it take this middleman out, takes us out, takes all the reporters out, the analysts out, he hears it right from the american people. that is the sentiment a lot of people on television are trying to crystalize. >> terry, let me ask you a quick question, this is jimmy carter yesterday asked by brian williams whether there was resentment with the other

presidents. >> he showed the former president a picture and asked if it was symbolic of carter feeling apart from the crowd in his post presidency. >> this was president carter's response. >> no. i feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other president, primarily because of the activism and injection of working at the carter center and international affairs and to some degree, domestic affairs on energy conservation and environment, things of that kind. i feel we have an advantage over many other former presidents being involved in daily affairs that shape the policies of the nation and the world. >> the former president went on to clarify the statements that he made. he said, what i meant was, for 27 years, the carter center has provided me with superior opportunities to do good. >> a terrible statement, a terrible clarification. terry mcauliffe, he talks about

activism and international fairs. bill clinton has an event going on right down the street from here. will be there thursday. i would guess bill clinton and other former presidents would take exception to this. >> he did come up with a clarification. i went and had lunch with him for president cart ear's 85 birthday. >> wow. >> i think he made a mistake in the first part of the sentence. he's cleared it up. he was an activist president. i remember when president clinton came into office, went to korea, the white house didn't want us to do it. >> look where that got us, great. one thing about president obama, i guarantee you he went back to the white house and called his economic team in the oval office and said, what are we doing here? agree, no one likes to hear it. i think he went back and said we have to do something, what are you doing? i hope he ray holy heck when he went back. >> might able to get the message

out in a more effective way. coming up, south carolina gubernatorial candidate, nikki haley. and former labor secretary, robert riesch is here. first a look at the forecast. good morning. chilliest forecast we have seen in new england, temperatures in the low 40s. look at hartford, no mistake. at 40 degrees. alabama at 41. don't worry, a booufl deautiful. no clouds and sunshine and temperatures 71 to 80 degrees, gorgeous late summer day. tomorrow, things warm up on the east coast and look in chicago. could see severe later this afternoon and the airport could have minor delays. the heat spreads east. look at the temperature in d.c. tomorrow. 91, 89 in europe, probably the last hot day we have in a while. tropical storm lisa formed, well

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but the financial landscape is still full of uncertainty. in times like these, you need an experienced partner to look out for you. heads up! and after 300 years we have gotten pretty good at that.

i have not made any determinations about personnel. i think larry summers and tim geithner have done an outstanding job as have my whole economic team. this is tough, the work that they do. they've been at it two years. they will have a range of decisions about family that will factor into this as well. bottom line, we're constantly thinking, is what we're doing work as well as it could? do we have other options and alternatives we can explore?

>> welcome back to "morning joe." terry mcauliffe. the president was talking about other options we can explore. we had tom friedman on. i was talking about a green economy, doing what the chance are doing. we didn't really take that greatly forward speaking of the chinese, back with the stimulus we could have. >> i'm upset about it. unveiled new electric cars on 7th avenue they shut down, i had my new hybrid. >> we thank you for that. >> it was good. thousands of people dame and looked at the cars, president clinton, a great show. the electric company is a company i bought in china, bringing it to the united states of america. china just but 60 billion into alternatives green, saudi arabia building green cities. these are the jobs of the future. that's why i'm so passionate.

we're allowing these countries to lap us? what is the apollo job except jobs for the country? lay out big markers. green this is way to go, we're letting other countries get ahead of us. whoever cap thirs cell technology, these are the jobs of the future, manufacturing jobs in the green space. >> this is something a conservative can agree with a progressive. you look at the apollo program. what that launched, scientists, engineers for the next generation. you look what happened when eisenhower started investing inpin sputnik in '57 and transforming detroit into a democracy, there are times -- >> we're talking about vision and long term vision, not just immediate need. here with us now, former secretary of labor, robert reich, the author of

"aftershock", the next economy and america's future. so -- >> mr. secretary -- >> here i am. >> that's a perfect segue. >> the recession is over, right? >> the recession is over. i don't feel any different than i did yesterday, do you? >> no. >> talk about the future. raising the question, what are you talking about in your book? >> most of the middle class has not actually improved their position adjusted for inflation for 30 years. a lot of this has been masked by women going into paid work, everybody working longer hours and going deeper and deeper into debt. >> dot-com boom in the '90s. >> all those options are gone and exhausted. we as a nation have to deal with the fact of the middle class in this country, vast majority of americans basically are where they were 30 years ago adjusted for inflation.

there's no real change. all the growth in the economy, where did the money go? it went to the top 1%. >> and still does. >> this is such an important message for americans and politicians, that look every two years, and concentrate on one congressional district because we always hear people yearning for the days after world war ii, that's when america was great. as i said last segment, that's when the united states had destroyed its economic opponents. so we basically had a free run of the americas and europe, we had the soviet union that wasn't competing against us economically. the world has changed and we have been in a slow economic decline for 30 years. >> it has changed but also let's not fool ourselves. when america emerged from world war ii, we rebuilt the rest of the world and we needed to rebuild the rest of the world not because of the soviet

menace, we needed strong trading partners and strong japan and europe helped us. the sacrifices america made not only in world war ii and post world war ii rebuilding the economy should not be underestimated. >> no doubt about it. i'm saying, people are yearning for good old days and think if you go to war, you will get out of a recession. the fact is that is something that happened one time and the states has to figure out how to grow the volume, mike, they will not do it by spending more money or cutting more taxes or starting more wars. we have to actually, as tom friedman say, we have to figure out a way to grow the pie for the first time in a long time. >> how did it happen over these past 30 years, we concentrated on growing wealth, creating wealth for a few, apparently, much more than the majority, than we did concentrate on

creating jobs for the majority? why is it that over the past 30 years, in china, they put out 20 times the fast speed rail tracks that we do here? we can't even get a fast speed -- >> it's not just fast speed. >> what happened? >> it's public units and investment education. the problem is for the last 30 years, we have been basically living off our legacy the 30 years before that. we didn't know it. we went deeper and deeper into debt. individual families went deeper and deeper into debt. the fact of the matter is most of the actual economy became a wall street financial oriented economy. most of the gains of the economy went to wall street and ceos. average working people did not make it during those years. it was masked by women going into work and everybody working longer hours and by going into debt. >> wages quadrupled over those 30 years. >> unionized wages went up. in the 1950s, 30% of americans were unionized.

fewer than 8% are unionized. we had simultaneously over the last 30 years a huge decrease in unionization. we had over the past 30 years a dramatic decrease in the marginal income tax on top earners. in the 1950s, nobody would accuse dwight eisenhower of being a radical, in the 1950s, the marginal tax rate on top earners was 91%. nobody's talking about that now. >> you're not suggesting we expand the top tax brackets to 91%, are you? >> no, i'm not. i'm suggesting -- wait a minute, joe. maybe a quarter of all the income goes to the top 1%, it might be appropriate a little bit more expansively about a higher marginal tax rate on the top in order to finance education and infrastructure and everything. >> got you. is the 39% right we had under president clinton of the 1990s,

which if the bush tax cuts expire, go back to that? is that sufficient, that 39%? >> in my book, i come out for a slightly higher marginal income tax rate on the very very top because they've never done as well before. >> what is the very very top? >> the very top would be people earning over a half million a year, people in the top 1% and now taking home almost 24%, 25%, almost a quart over all the national income. they can afford -- we haven't seen this concentration of income in this country since the late 1920s. >> my problem is we hear time and time again from everybody that comes around this table, there's a lot of income on the sidelines, people are waiting to decide whether to reinvest in the economy. there are a lot of small business people, whether new york or burkely, california, whatever, maybe they make $500,000, maybe they have a small business that hires three,

four, five, ten people. if their income tax -- as you know, the income tax rate in california is already high, there is a concern if you raise taxes on the top tax rate to 45%, that's money they don't have to reinvest in the economy. >> joe, few myths have been prop pa ga gaited as much by republicans over the years, not any individual republican that you cannot raise taxes on the rich without hurting the economy. i want to stress you to the 30 best years we had in the post war era, taxes were between 70 and 90% on the top income earners in this country and the economy grew more than it has grown since. >> again, that was a time when -- >> it was time. >> europe was devastated. >> it was also a time we invested, we invested in infrastructure, the national highway program. national public free

universities. we did things we are not doing and have not done since. >> i don't want the focus to always be on taxes, a big piece of this, but we have to create jobs in what are new technologies. you can give me all the tax cuts you want but if i don't have a product to sell, you can't create jobs. we have to unleash capital. 4 trillion on the sidelines. business needs certainty. you have to deal with this and products to sell. >> there has to be demand, consumers who have enough money in their packets to buy stuff. >> and around the world. that's when we did great in this country, had the products to sell and the world leader. other nations moved ahead of us. we have to get back on top of that. green is national circuit, environment and job creation. we spent $900 billion importing diesel and gas products. 58% we import from countries who do not like us. it kills our trade deficit.

>> mike barnicle, last hour, we had a lot of fun with a lot of rabid voices on the right and the left, but there's nothing humorous about the fact because of the shrillness discussions like this aren't had enough. the united states is at a critical juncture it is disturbing when you have a republican president and left wingers calling him a fascist. you have a democratic president right wingers calling him a fascist and marxist. it's our future. >> i agree with that. >> all you have to do is drive up on 95 through new england and see shuttered factories. >> if i had won, i could have taken on mitt romney. if i had taken on mitt romney, i would be governor of virginia and now considered a possible contender. >> see those shuttered factories, that's what happens

when you lose. >> when i was secretary of labor, people were hurting even in the early '90s. yeah, we had a boom in the late '90s. that was largely because of the policies of bill clinton and 22 million net new jobs. great. the underlying structural problems are still there. they were there in the '80s and there in the '90s. we have not addressed them. the middle class cannot support this economy, doesn't have enough money in its pocket. >> we should have a huge tax cut for the middle class. donny deutche is standing by in the greenroom. the book is "aftershock," the next economy and america's future. mr. secretary, thank you so much. >> see you. >> all right.

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>> reporter: at a fish farm in canada, scientists are turning these tiny atlantic salmon eggs into a sort of super fish, injecting them with a growth hormone from chinook salmon that causes them to grow twice the fast and twice the harvest. the company says the scientist can relieve overfishing and put more salmon on dinner plates. >> in terms of appearance, taste and texture and biology, the salmon is the same. >> reporter: but consumer health and environmental groups have dubbed the salmon franken fish. ben & jerry's ice cream have launched a something's fishy campaign and any genetically altered animals for consumption. >> today it is the genetically engineered fish and then a pig and chicken. >> reporter: mixed reaction. >> common sense. it's not supposed to be healthy. >> would i eat genetically

enhanced food? we're already doing it with processed food. >> reporter: no one has eaten genetically altered fish. and some people have such violent reactions to fish. the fda has already determined it is safe to eat. but the union that publishes reports tells the fda it's relying on sloppy science. >> the basic point is what little data there is suggests there could be an allergy problem, serious and life-threatening. >> reporter: if the full "today" gives its go ahead, it could be in grocery stores within two years. tom costello, washington. >> thanks. next, we turn to the world's expert on genetically engineered salmon, pat buchanan. [ female announcer ] what if your natural beauty could be flawless, too?

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it's been minutes now since we talked about christine o'donnell. >> it's been more than minutes. >> that's why we need to get back to it. >> pat buchanan is with us. >> a good man, a good man. >> i can't wait to see how you get through this one. explain this one, please. >> christine o'donnell was a television pundit for 15 years or so, an awful lot of tape on her. it just keeps coming up. she was on o'reilly three years ago, talking about genetic engineering, cloning and mice. >> do we have the clip? >> they are -- they are doing that here in the united states. american scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human

brains. >> pat, please defend that statement. >> i think it would be larger than a mouse. i will say this, all right, look, you have a lot of things this young woman has said. they're going back to her high school record and a lot of embarrassing things. i will say this. >> pat, hold on a second. this was three years ago. >> okay. let me say this. at least the tea party folks are talking about serious issues. if the democratic party, whose centerpiece was health care was going to transform america is going to win an election going after this lady's witchcraft in high school and these kind of statements, that also tells me the democratic party has a big problem. i heard her opponent in drudge wrote a column saying i converted from conservatism to

become a bearded marxist. we can run the campaign on these things and have a lot of fun. i will tell you if the democratic party will rely on these things to win elections, it may win this one, it has a lot more to deal with than christine o'donnell. >> it's interesting pat brought up the witchcraft and there may be an impact. she is starting to lose the wiccan vote, terry can tell you is the beginning to the end. >> in southern delaware, if the wiccan vote. we run the clips and everybody laughs and all do it on youtube and democrats think we got her. terry mcauliffe and pat buchanan is right. they don't care what they said in 2007, they care about their jobs in 2010. >> you bet. that's why the closing arguments, here are the things we have done. >> what we can do for you. >> here is how we will get you

employed. >> i will make a big announ announcement at the clinton conference. i will tell my first 10,000 cars. >> can we buy one? >> you can go online and pick your color. >> we have gone from christine o'donnell and genetically altered mouse brains to his cars. >> it's the future. >> the next 40 days, closing arguments for this campaign, it's important. they don't care what she says. how did she beat castle? people don't care, what are you doing for me? i will signed a message, i'm madder than heck at you. eight years they had, lan ran u into the ditch. give us four years. >> mike castle was supposedly a guy i like an awful lot. i'm surprised mcdonnell beat and could do the same thing in the

general. >> it's not simply her, though, joe, i think she would admit herself, not simply sarah palin, an enormous force of people deeply concerned about her country got behind her and put her over the top. she may not win, that force, whatever you say about those folks, might say things that don't sound all right. they do talk about their country and issues and its future. that's what's on the minds of all americans. >> there will be a conservative wave. the question is how far that wave crashes. it could carry christine o'donnell over the finish line. >> it could. i don't think so. at the end of the day, despite the issues she might be carrying that anger some voters, people of delaware don't want to be embarrassed. >> she's right on most things. >> chuck e. cheese, i've been there a lot. >> yeah. >> michael eisner and donny

deutche coming up. >> this is big. >> looking ahead to thursday. former president bill clinton will be here. that will be interesting. we'll be right back after "morning joe" continues after a brief break. trust me. trust me. ya i like that. trust me. bankers are known to be a little bit in love with themselves. are we going up? we can get the next one. i'd like to get your advice on hedging - risk... exposure. what makes us different? for 300 years we've chosen to focus on our clients. what a novel idea.

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, michael hirsch, chief correspondent for national journal, author of a new book, "capital offense." good to see you again. how did they turn over the future to wall street? >> it goes back about 30 years, to the reagan revolution, the it has a lot to do with the sort of free-market fervor that governed during this whole period. it was sort of turbo-charged by the end of the cold war. we got to a point where it was thought that markets always worked and governments never did. and what happened was that what economists had long known about the difference in financial markets, how they're much more prone to manias and panics, much more central to the way the economy works, because they supply the lifeblood capital, that was all forgotten.

that was all marginalized and dismissed, on both sides of the aisle. and we got to a place in this country where wall street and the financial sector came to have the whip hand over economy. if you look behind a lot of the figures we're discussing today, these new figures about the current recession, one of the reasons it's so deep and enduring and the recovery is so slow is because it was financially driven. history has shown that recessions that begin with financial crashes are often worse in terms of the recovery. and this was the biggest crash of all since the '30s. >> bob reich was just on with us, a former secretary of labor, and he was saying that for 30 years, wages have basically been stagnant for the vast majority of people in this country. so how did it happen that over the course -- if you agree with this, how did it happen over the course of 30 years, when terry mcauliffe and bill clinton were in the white house, two bushes

were in the white house, how did the system become so paralyzed that nobody noticed that one huge section of this country's people, wage earners, were stagnant in their wages, buying less, while wealthy people only got wealthier. >> very slowly. so slowly, you know, somewhat analogous to the frog in the pot with the slowly cooking water, doesn't realizing it's boiling until it's too late. something like that happened, where the middle class was gradually hollowed out. during the last decade, we had the illusion of prosperity, driven by debt, as secretary reich and others were pointing out. where we thought we had the old prosperity, we thought we had something of the old middle class. it's not like it's new to lament, but we thought there were enough jobs out there. turns out most of it was driven by debt. what was happening is the same time our policymakers were expecting this middle class to sustain the country and actually to be the consumer of last resort in the whole world, we didn't have much of one left.

and that's the real revelation of this crisis, is the middle class was gone. and what was left of it was this illusion driven by piling on enormous amounts of debt driven by wall street. >> so terry, 30 years later now, and after a financial crisis, which we're still grappling, have we learned our lesson? >> i don't think we have at all. in fact, you know, everybody worries, we need to create 100,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. forget about the 15 million jobs that we've lost. we've got to somehow create new economic activity and we can't do it unless we're doing it with the middle class, through manufacturing. and i don't see us today doing what we need to do. i implore upon the president, we need an apollo project for the next 10, 20, 30 years. and if we're not creating jobs and putting money in people's pocket -- i mean, i worry. and we're seeing countries lap us. >> i would add, part of the pathology we're dealing with this wall street-minded economy,

a lot of our great minds are going to wall street to be developing these enormously complex products that even the ceos of these wall street firms couldn't understand. you need to re-orient so our best minds are going into real engineering and not financial engineering. >> tom friedman talks about a moon shot week in, week out. what's keeping the president from creating that. from creating that vision for the country. some huge project to totally transform the economy? >> i mean, obviously he's run up against a political wall with the opposition to additional government spend welcome the tea party movement, you know, my own view is that he perhaps made a political mistake by creating health care reform. i think it created this resistance to these financial programs. but there is money that has yet to pay out on some of these types of programs, but it's not on a scale that's big enough. >> michael hirsch, thanks. the book looks great, it's called "capital offense," go out and pick up a copy. looks great. terry, thanks for being here.

go pick up one of terry's green cars. >> green automotive. >> everything's made in america? >> everything. it's the future. coming up next, donny deutsch comes into the conversation, gene robinson, joe conason, it's all next on "morning joe." [ female announcer ] it can creep up on you. dry skin. that's why there's lubriderm® daily moisture. it contains the same nutrients naturally found in healthy skin. skin absorbs it better and it lasts for 24 hours. later gator. lubriderm. your moisture matched. ♪ [ mom ] game time is all about the traditions.

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no, i feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other

presidents. primarily because of the activism and the ejection of working into international affairs and to some degree, domestic affairs on energy conservation, on environment and things of that kind. so i feel that we have an advantage over many other former presidents in big involved in daily affairs that shape the policies of our nation and the world. >> jimmy carter talking last night to brian williams on the "nbc nightly news," talking about his superiority to other former presidents. >> that's how i feel sitting next to you, my role is superior. >> you remind me of jimmy carter. welcome back to "morning joe." here with us now, mike barnicle, donny deutsch is here. good to see you, donny. chris jansing. joe conason of salon.com is here as well. and in washington, a full house. pat buchanan is still with us. and columnist for "the washington post," eugene robinson. good morning to all. i'll pick a name out of a hat. let's start with pat. your reaction to jimmy carter's

comment yesterday that he's superior to other past presidents? >> i think it came from the heart. that's what he believes, quite frankly. and it's the type of thing that's gotten jimmy carter in trouble with a lot of people. the perception that really he's unappreciated and that he actually does a better job than these other presidents, but richard nixon wrote ten books or something like that and others do different things. i think it hurts carter and it, frankly, reinforces an impression in a lot of minds that jimmy carter was a very small man in a very big job. >> donny, he did come out with a statement afterwards, treatmeatg to clarify, "what i plenty was, for 27 years, the carter center has provided me with superior opportunities to do good," but the damage was done. >> i'm going to give him a pass, the aoctober ja narn pass.

>> but it plays into a narrative about jimmy carter or a truth about jimmy carter. >> that's the problem. it confirm what had people believed about him already. it doesn't help him that he's older. it sounds the same. that's why it was stunning. >> willie, the thing is, this was not a slip of the tongue. i think jimmy carter's got his faculties right there. he's written some books on the middle east i think are pretty good in a lot of what they said and pretty gusty. this is what the man believes in his heart and it came out. >> gene, knowing what you know about jimmy carter, having been in washington covering politics for a while, were you surprised at all by what you heard yesterday? >> you know, not terribly. you know, i would say two things about his observation. number one, he has been quite a good former president, so i think there's some truth in that. but second, to say that he was -- you know, that he has

been superior to other former presidents is you know, will be seen as characteristic jimmy carter. you know, he has a very healthy self-esteem and a lot of people think that got him in trouble or helped get him in trouble when he was president. >> jimmy carter, he was on a book tour. he did "the daily show" last night. he was also on "the view" yesterday. let's -- yeah, he did skip our show, as chris lick points out. let's listen to what he said on "the view". >> well, you heard us talking in the hot topics about ted kennedy and you say that he blocked the fact that you want to have had a health care bill and it's taken 30 years before we have another one, which is still controversial. now, some people are saying, and we said, why do you pick on a man who's no longer able to defend himself? >> well, he was able to defend himself when i wrote this the book, because it was written 31 years ago. >> your diary?

>> with but you didn't have to publish it now? >> no, i don't have to publish anything, that's true, but i have to make a living. >> i take it back. he's a crusty old bastard. >> that just blew up your theory. >> he doesn't get the helen thomas pass. >> let's put it on the table. he is a frustrated, bitter, angry, petty, small individual. >> how do you feel about him? >> who happens to represent one of the great hopes for this country. because if we survived his presidency, we can certainly endure, survive, and prosper the recession right now. he should just go continue to build decks for people. >> but would you at least give him credit for what he has done -- >> no. >> as an ex-president. >> what has he done? >> he set up the carter center, he has traveled the world. he has, i think in many instances, very quietly, he has gone out and he has done work that the government didn't want to do or other people didn't want to do, and he has set a standard.

and i think even president bush and president clinton would say that a lot of the way that they have formed their post-presidency was based on what president carter did. >> no question about that. president clinton will tell you he talked to president carter before he left the white house, because he had admired what president carter had did, mike. it's not either/or. >> he repeatedly meddled, meddled in the affairs of other countries at the insistence of sitting presidents, george w. bush and bill clinton, that he not do things, that he disregarded their advice. repeatedly. >> that's also true. but if you look back at his presidency, he was right about some things that we've ignored to our detriment. >> about what? >> he was right about energy, completely. and had we taken his advice 30 years ago, we would be in much better shape than we are today. in lots of ways. >> and you know, he does deserve, i think, he did deserve the nobel peace prize for bagen

and sadot. that great achievement, he should have gotten it back then. frankly, well more deserved than barack obama's peace prize. i'm still not sure what -- >> forced everybody to defend him. >> that's a trick. you just got pat buchanan to defend jimmy carter. that's history in the making. let's move from jimmy carter to the current president, chris jansing. >> all right, barack obama, who is reaching out to skeptical voters who are still reeling from the economic downturn, urging them to stick with him through the crucial midterm elections. town hall meeting yesterday, televised live on cnbc, and the president responded to questions from unemployed workers, recent college graduates, small business owners. a lot of them expressing their frustration about the state of the economy. the president said he understood their anger, but says the country needs to stay the course. >> i'm one of your middle class americans. and quite frankly, i'm exhausted. i'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration,

defending the mantle of change that i voted for. and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. i have been told that i voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. i'm one of those people and i'm waiting, sir. >> i was really inspired by you and your campaign and the message that you brought, and that inspiration is dying away. it feels like the american dream is not attainable. is the american dream dead for me? >> times are tough for everybody right now, so i understand your frustration. my goal here is not to try to convince you that everything's where it needs to be. it's not. that's why i ran for president. but what i am saying is that we're moving in the right direction. >> gene robinson, how do you think the president did yesterday? we've been saying all morning, we thought those are the clips that made headlines, but we thought the president did pretty well. how do you think he did? >> i thought he did pretty well

too. look. how can you -- how do you respond when -- really to a question like that, or to questions like that, when we really are talking about structural problems in the economy that have taken many, many with, many years to develop and will take a long time to correct. so in that sense, you kind of -- president obama happens to have the job at the time when the bill has come due and has got to be paid. so it's understandable that people would be that frustrated. it's not that he's done every single thing right in office, but i think what else can he say, other than, you know, we've got a ways to go and i'm trying to take the right steps. >> donny, it's interesting too, watching the dynamic between the people asking the questions of the president. >> two things i noticed. first off, was fascinating, people were almost apologetic

for criticizing. it really shows what the polls show. people like the man. imagine if that was w. up there. imagine other presidents in that firing line. it would not be as what i'll call personally disappointed. still rooting for you, pal, not angry, still rooting for you. i thought that was interesting. where i think he missed the opportunity, i'll go back to my roots as a ceo, if my company was in trouble and i was getting people in trouble, i would take it one step further than, we're heading in the right direction. as if, we're getting there. he needs to be more of a cheerleader. i would have like to have seen him go, it's coming, it was eight years getting here, i can't do it overnight. not only are we heading in the right direction, we're going to get there. act as if. and he doesn't push it over the goal line that way. >> pat, some people writing this morning that this was kind of the president back at his campaign best. kind of out in that format, taking the frustrations of the voters head-on. >> i disagree. just from the clips we showed. what makes these two folks so

riveting, the black lady and that fella is that these aren't tea party people, these are obama people who have been hurt and who have been disillusioned and who have lost faith in him. it was dramatic and riveting for that reason. they're his folks, and the clip we showed him of responding, i thought, was just sort of this meandering thing, the same thing we've heard. i think that contrast would be very hurtful to have the president, if that's what the country saw. >> we got a clip, actually, pat, of the tea party, and gene, want to get your take on how he addressed the tea party here. >> the challenge, i think, for the tea party movement is to identify specifically what would you do? it's not enough just to say, get control of spending. what you can't do, which is what i've been hearing a lot from the other side, is saying, we're going to control government spending. we're going to propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts,

and that magically, somehow, things are going to work. >> gene, how's he handling the tea party threat generally, and how'd he do yesterday? >> you know, i get the sense that the white house is still trying to figure out exactly how in this home stretch of the elections they're going to deal with the tea party. how hard they're going to try and hit them, whether they're going to essentially say, you know, this is a bunch of loonies who believe in, you know, human mice and all sorts of -- and witchcraft and all sorts of crazy stuff, or try to address them as, i think, as the president's tendency on that sort of logical basis. okay, fine, you're mad, everybody understands you're mad, but what are you going to do? how are you going to do this? now, i'm not quite sure which approach is going to work, because, because a lot of people

are not going to be willing to have lost patience with the political system at this time, so people who are, you know, who like the tea party, i don't think are particularly going to be dissuaded by this sort of logical argument. >> hey, pat, you've worked in white houses and around presidents. you were with garfield. everybody remembers that, right? but don't you think -- >> he ended badly too. >> don't you think it's positive that the first woman who stepped up and said she was exhausted by defending him, from defending him, and disappointed in what has happened, don't you think that's a uniquely positive thing for the president to hear? because axelrod and gibbs aren't going to go in and say that to him, and the second part of what donny just said, why do you suppose that no one in the white house has figured out at the country might need a pep talk? >> well, you know, mike, you're exactly right. i mean, that woman dripped with

sincerity and authenticity. that is an obama woman, who probably just loved going out there and voting for barack obama. and you can see the hurt coming out. and i think, as i say, i don't think obama handled that well, but i will say this -- when it comes to the tea party, the president would be better off if he had some angry tea party fella up there saying, you know, and he's angry because the president then is a cool customer. and i thought his answer on the tea party was correct. i understand your anger, sir, but let me say this, we're doing this and we're doing that, and what are your folks other ideas? he was better on that. he was totally disarmed, i think, by that woman. he had no real, i think, effective response. but he's better off, as i say, when he's up against an angry tea party fella. >> i think what's interesting, i want to connect the dots between the people's reverence of him and the tea party. i think the democrats might surprise some people for the very thing, whereas, when you put the o'donnells up there as

an alternative, you've got a guy in office who maybe you kind of still necessary, you're disappointed, but you still like the guy, you're still rooting for him. so you have such a long ball over here, i think it allows people to stay closer to home. >> that's the critical point, actually. for the president, after confronting the disappointment of supporters to say, you know what, this is not a referendum on me, this election is a choice between me and them. it's a choice between me trying to dig us out of the hole that was left to me and the ideas that i have about the future and what over there. their angry. which is not going to get you anywhere. in fact, for a lot of people, is going to make things worse. i mean, addressing the tea party directly is not going to work for him. what he has to do is say, it's that or it's what we're trying to do. especially to his disappointed -- >> and we're going to get and there! >> we've got a lot of work to undo. still ahead on "morning joe,"

former disney ceo michael eisner will be here with us. also, how in the world did california gubernatorial candidate meg whitman spend $100 million of her own money in her election efforts? it's one of the top stories in the "politico playbook." but first, here's bill karins with a quick check on the forecast. >> good morning to you, willie. just a fantastic day out there. it's a little chilly in new england, but we're going to see quiet weather conditions up much of the eastern seaboard, if you're flying today. the only airport i'm a little bit concerned about is chicago o'hare. clear skies in the east, as we go throughout the afternoon, we'll be sunny and beautiful. what a day. what a stretch of great weather from boston down to d.c. as far as the rest of the country goes, we're way too hot. we've got temperatures near 100 yesterday in memphis. that's ridiculous for this time of year, and we're going to be hot again today from new orleans up into atlanta. the temperature there into the mid-90s. tomorrow, some of that warmth spreads to the east. one more hot day, i think that's just about it. we kick into fall, the cooler weather will arrive finally for a lot of areas. and chicago, chance of storms the next two days in a row.

that's our airport concern. final thing, we also have a new tropical storm out there, tropical storm lisa. the reason we're not making a big deal about it, it's way, way, way out there, just off the coast of africa, and that's never going to come close to any land areas. it's just going to sit there and spin for the next five days, so no concerns from lisa. you're watching "morning joe," brewed, of course, by starbucks. [ female announcer ] sometimes you need tomorrow to finish what you started today. for the aches and sleeplessness in between, there's new motrin pm. no other medicine, not even advil pm, is more effective for pain and sleeplessness. new motrin pm.

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iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad is in town.

mm-hmm. he -- as you know, he hates jews and gay people. boy, is he in the wrong place. >> yes, he is. >> so if this is a microcosm of new york, i'm jewish, so then we've got a someplace else, right? >> go ahead. >> we should point out, joe and mika, right now, are at a working breakfast with mahmoud ahmadinejad. not joking about that. they're having breakfast at this moment with him. that's why they stepped off the set. >> it's a pilot for a new show that's going to begin, "breakfast with mahmoud." >> what are they working on? >> just working through some issues. >> sleeves rolled up. >> want to make sure the border is -- >> maybe joe will just whack him one. >> "breakfast with mahmoud" coming soon to msnbc. let's take a look at the morning papers. "usa today," a panel of prominent economists delivered a

verdict monday that may surprise more than 15 million americans. the recession ended more than a year ago, june in 2009. >> good to get that behind us. "washington times," afghanistan, iraq, guantanamo bay and iran's nuclear program, those are the hot button issues that dominated elections in recent years, but they're nowhere to be found in this year's national campaign debate. >> "new york times," republican lawmakers say they're determined to chip away at the obama health care law, even if they cannot dismantle it, this despite facing tremendous political hurdles in undoing a law whose provisions are rapidly going into effect. >> "the wall street journal," the government is close to releasing the first genetically modified animal to appear on american dinner plates. that story written by the republican candidate for senate from delaware. >> how do you like, when the waiter comes over, i have a special, lab-tweaked salmon tonight. no thanks. with us now, mike allen, with a look at the playbook.

>> good morning. i'm glad you're doing your working breakfast right there on the set. >> that's right. these are our ahmadinejads right here. our working breakfast. you've got an incredible number to tell us about with meg whitman and the amount of money she's spending in california in that race to become governor. >> this is the ultimate cadillac campaign. meg whitman, so far, has spent $120 million. half of that has gone to tv ads, and you're going to love this, she has spent more on private planes than her opponent, democrat jerry brown, the former governor, has spent on his entire campaign. >> wow. well, she's got it, donny. that's a staggering number. >> if you take that on a national -- if you scope that out, that's like $1.5 billion brand. i mean, that's like what general motor spends in one year, period. it's stunning. someone should do kind of a little equation, every point in the polls, what it is costing her, probably the most expensive campaign. i think at some point it starts to backfire and there's overkill

and there's oversaturation. there is something in advertising called oversaturation where you really start to turn people off. >> she's still got about a month and a half left. what's the latest polling looking like out there, mike? how's she doing? >> it's closed, significantly. jerry brown held back, but he's had some strong ads, so now it's very close. an important thing to point out, this is almost all her own money, which gives him a big shot. he's able to say, you know, maybe you should be spending this money on other things that would benefit the state rather than on just this expensive campaign. he's able to make an issue out of it, to say, voters are not going to vote on fancy pamphlets or a candidate that's traveling around with security guards in a big bubble. >> he should have a ticker on every one of his ads, this is how much she's spent to date. it's me or -- oops, she's up to $100 billion. >> trying to buy the election. >> stay on that.

this day and age, you can't have anything worse. >> mike, the house apparently ready to get the hell out of town already, that's frustrating a lot of people and making a little history with how early they're leaving. >> this would be the first time since 1960 in an election year that the house has left town before september 30th. they're thinking of leaving as soon as this friday. they were expected to be here a couple more weeks. i'll leave it up to you to decide whether a candidate is better in his district or in d.c. out of sight. these days, a little hard to tell. >> joe, you surprised they're getting out as early as they are? >> no. to the extent it's true people want to get rid of incumbents, they all want to go home and try to hold their seats. i think mike may be right. not everyone wants to see their member of the house, but they want to be there trying to find the people who do. >> pat, there is a lot of unfinished business that frustrates some people that they're skipping town. >> well, i'll say, look, they've got the bush tax cuts expire january 1. if they're leaving town this weekend, that tells me there's going to be a lame-duck session

and the number one issue is going to be the bush tax cuts and obama's probably going to rely on about 35 dead blue dogs to vote for him, since they don't have jobs and are going to be looking for them. >> mike allen, thanks so much. we'll be checking you guys out at politico.com. coming up next, business before the bell with erin burnett. get that one piece right and the rest of the room will just fall into place. see your ethan allen design center for two beautiful ways to save.

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>> welcome back to "morning joe." it's 8:30. time on a check on business before the bell with erin burnett, live at the new york stock exchange. good news? >> good news. this is really interesting news, guys, because today the fed's going to make its big decision on whether to downgrade its outlook on the u.s. economy. and we just found out that housing starts for august, so people starting new homes, was up 10.5%. it sounds big, it is big, and it's really big when you take into account that economists were looking for a drop of 2/10 of a percent. we saw an increase of 10.5%. not only is that good in general, but it's also really important news, because we all new we have that new home buyer tax credit and when that expired, we saw housing starts, everything related to housing really drop off sharply. but you've seen this real comeback, which may show there's some more strength in that market. we're still at very depressed levels, so i'm not going to say we're in the all-clear, but

these are strong numbers and much more than anyone had expected. >> erin, that's a remarkable number, given we thought it was going to be down, and then in july, we're showing right here that we are happy because we got a 0.4% increase in housing starts. what are they saying? how do they explain this? >> you know, in july, they're the actually revising down slightly. in july, their going to say, it's still a little bit of a hangover. that pull-forward concept, when that new home buyer tax credit was there, they started in the spring, they started in the spring, and now in august, it turns out a lot of people that were waiting came in and started buying. so it's interesting. and it also conflicted with what we found out yesterday. home builders had their lowest sentiment numbers in 18 months in terms of their outlook. it's still choppy in the housing market, but it could be stabilizing. and it's really important, guys, because this weighs into the fed's decision today. they're meeting on interest rates, they're not going to move interest rates, but their big thing today is going to be whether they indicate that they're going to do more. that they're going to go out and

buy more assets to try to keep interest rates low for everything, including mortgages. so this may add to the latest data that showed, hey, things aren't as bad, things are improving. maybe the fed doesn't need to take additional extraordinary measures. so we shall see. one thing to keep in mind, by the way, is mortgage rates are already low. you all know, they're right near 30-year lows, 4.4% for a 30-year fixed mortgage. what else can the fed do? the problem in the economy isn't cheap credit, it's getting demand, getting people to spend. it's a demand-side problem we have right now. >> erin, theoretically, what would the fed buy? >> well, they could go out and they had been buying mortgages. they could go out and buy more mortgages and basically by doing that, they're -- by creating more demand for buying the mortgages, they're going to bring the interest rates down even lower. they could do that for other things as well. they had done that with corporate debt earlier, but, like i said, if you already have rates at 40-year lows, buying

more, you're going to bring them to, what, 50-year lows? what's it going to do. >> erin, it's donny. i want to concentrate on one sector. the christine o'donnell human brain in the mice, how is that affecting biotechs today? >> you know what, donny, i'm not going there. >> well done, erin! well done. >> the last time she was on, who was buttering her bread? >> it was mr. trump. >> i want the last conversation, mr. trump butters my bread. i want to understand what that means. >> i go on his show. as a matter of fact, i'm taping something for it coming up. >> there you go, donny. >> but i said, i followed up, donny, and i said, i know he's a good conversationalist. having never met tom brady, i know nothing about tom brady, so i picked donald. >> we were giving erin the choice between tom brady and donald trump for a day. >> last question here. >> these questions are a little scary today. is williams going to win the

football title this year? >> williams should win it, williams should win the sears cup, because they are the best athletic program in college sports. >> you know, we started so well with the housing starts, some actual information. >> i'm getting scared, i have another question. >> thank you, donny. >> thanks, donny. great to see you! >> i'll be over in a little while. before we go to break, we need to get pat buchanan to weigh in real quick. of course, one of the great proponents of sarah palin. did you see bristol last night on "dancing with the stars," pat, and if we can just get you, if you have a return monitor to kind of review bristol palin's performance on "dancing with the stars"? governor palin was not in the ballroom, she was holding a viewing party back in wasilla. pat, walk us through what we're seeing here, would you? >> that looks like the dance we used to do in the 1950s. >> sure it is. i think that's the cha-cha. >> the jitter bug or something like that. >> i think that's the cha-cha.

>> i'm not kidding, i was invited, it is not a joke, i was invited this season to be on "dancing with the stars" and i passed this season uh, but i will put something up for pat, if pat goes on, i will do it. >> you know, donny, confession, i was invited to go on, i was called and invited, and waited about two seconds and i said, you know, 40 years ago, i might have been there, no. >> how much would you pay to see that combo, deutsche versus buchanan? >> i'm calling up my friends at abc. that's a yes for me if pat's on there also. >> true story, i won a waltz contest when i was in ninth grade. >> that does not surprise me. >> see, you're completely qualified. and there's a lot of spray tanning and skin tight polyester. >> who knew that pat would be a ringer in "dancing with the stars"? >> pat, thanks so much for that valuable contribution to the program. >> okay. >> standing by in the green room right now, former disney ceo,

michael eisner. we'll be right back on "morning joe." wall street is getting back on its feet. but the financial landscape is still full of uncertainty. in times like these, you need an experienced partner to look out for you. heads up! and after 300 years we have gotten pretty good at that.

welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, former chairman and ceo of the walt disney company and author of the book, "working together: why great partnerships succeed," michael eisner. michael, great to see you. >> thank you. >> tell us about the idea behind the book, because you've got some great pairings we'll go through here. two people who got together and made something extraordinary happen. >> it seemed to me in having a very good partner with frank welles at disney and seeing all these new technology companies and every new company really being partners, if you're kind of alone, doesn't seem to work. and then i talked to warren buffett, who has a great partner in charlie munger. he became my agent. he said, hey, this is a great idea.

bill gates and his wife, melinda, and philanthropy, and valentino in fashion. joe torre and don zimmer in baseball, ron howard and grazer. two great producers. won a lot of academy awards. the home depot guys created the second largest big box retail store. two bridge players. two women married to the same guy. great chefs books. so i had a really good time. the interviewing was fantastic. >> i was fascinated you wrote this book. look, you're the guy who turned disney around. your legacy is very clear. your management style was really known as kind of autocratic. i'm not calling that negative. >> pot calling the kettle black. >> overexaggerated. autocratic's the wrong word. >> whatever the word, you were a strong leader, and it's

interesting. i mean that genuinely as a comment. i think it's interesting that you're a guy that delved into this whole partnership thing. >> well, i didn't do it alone. i had frank welles, who was the most enthusiastic supporter. we went into coming together. he really advocated being number one, so i would be number one. i've seen these partnerships that work, and interestingly, harvard did a study over 70 years, beginning with the class of jack kennedy in '39, '40, '41, every five years studied this class to try to determine what made the perfect life, happiness. it wasn't exercise, it wasn't wealth, it wasn't diet, it was a sustained relationship over a long period of time. >> so what's the formula? with all these things, if there was one piece of secret sauce, which is what makes a great partnership. what'd you find from all those people? >> as warren said to me and says more eloquently than i'm going to now say it, you know, there are seven deadly sins, and gluttony is kind of fun, you eat

a lot, feel bad later. lust has its upsides and downsides. envy makes you sick from day one, it's awful. these partners are not envious of other. if you look at john zimmer and joe torre. neither won alone. they won together four world series. by the way, i think the mets should bring don zimmer and joe torre back to new york. talking about it, right? i think it's going to happen. i hear it's going to happen. >> it is possible, you hear anecdotally stories about a ceo and the chairman of the board of a company and a great company, but they hate each other, but they get things done. is it possible to have a successful partnership where the partners really don't get along? >> no. because eventually they turn on each other. two bad people can't be partners for a long time, because like most bad people, they stab each other in the back. all the partnerships i looked at, and almost every new

business is a partnership. and you know, here's the thing that's interesting. we teach our kids, our toddlers, don't throw your sister's hair in the toilet. don't steal the toys, share. they go to nursery school. share. everybody should share. then they get to about fifth grade, go for it! be number one! win the football game. get the highest s.a.t. we lose that idea of sharing, and at disney, synergy, partners amongst all of our divisions, following the partnership of frank and me, really worked. >> and if you buy into that and you think you need a partner, can you go out and specifically find it? was it dumb luck that some of these people came together? how did these partnerships happen? >> i happened to be at a party the night my -- what i thought was my future wife dumped me and i met another woman and i've been married to her for 45 years -- 43 years. so how do you find them? recognize them when they show up. >> speaking of women, it's

interesting, have you found -- i know mika is working on a book that's touching a lot of us, that women make better partners than men, are more collaborative? >> this is really -- this is a land mine. >> no, i found that. >> there's no good answer. >> i found that women are more the collaborative. >> the opposite. >> the opposite? >> really? interesting. >> i found it hard to find women. now, it is true the people i looked at were very, very established and it's only in the last 20 or so years that women were getting to be equal in this area. so the pool wasn't as big. somehow, the cat fights among women are more insidious than the bull fights or whatever you want to say the analogy would be among men. there were a couple of women i asked, and they didn't want to do it, because they were afraid they would be giving too much credit to their partner. somehow, when men get to the point. and you know what, this is ridiculous. i'm sure it's not true. i'm sure that over time, it all

equals out. but in my experience, a lot of these really powerful men enjoyed sharing. when you're in the foxhole and everything is bad, you need somebody to say something funny. you need a partner against the world, that when you win, it's fun to high five. it's fun to go home to your spouse, man or woman, and talk about the great day or the horrible day. >> it is interesting that looking at this list, except for bill and melinda gates, it's men with men and women with women. right? >> true. i looked at several mothers and daughters, who have successful relationships. madame curry. i wanted people who were alive, with the exception of steve nobel. i lived through vietnam, the beginning of birth control, the beginning of massive drugs, so this whole studio 54 and how that happened and how two partners got in trouble and ended up in jail together, and

then in jail figured out what they'd done wrong and then came out and revolutionized the hotel business. that was a cultural -- that was like "saturday night fever" all over again. all of a sudden i was reliving the vietnam era. >> fact check, you're not older than michael barnicle. >> he still talks about those nights up on the balcony at studio 54. mike, thanks so much for being here. the book is called "working together: why great partnerships succeed." thank you, michael. >> thanks. up next, a preview of the new documentary. next. # # of the shrimpers and fishermen, hotel or restaurant workers who lost their jobs to the spill. i'm iris cross. bp has taken full responsibility for the clean up in the gulf and that includes keeping you informed. our job is to listen and find ways to help. that means working with communities. restoring the jobs, tourist beaches, and businesses impacted by the spill.

we've paid over $400 million in claims and set up a $20 billion independently-run claims fund to cover lost income until people impacted can get back to work. and our efforts aren't coming at tax-payer expense. i know people are wondering-- now that the well is capped, is bp gonna meet its commitments? i was born in new orleans. my family still lives here. i'm gonna be here until we make this right.

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these are pictures from last night at yankee stadium, the new yanky stadium as major league baseball and former yankee players and managers gathered to honor the late george steinbrenner. of course, the owner who became the face of the great franchise over the last 37 years, something like that. tonight is the premiere of espn's new documentary, "the house of steinbrenner." joining us now, two-time academy award-winning filmmaker, barbara kopp, the producer and director of that film. barbara, thanks for being here. >> it's a pleasure to be here. >> we just have to say, these espn 30 for 30 films -- >> they are fantastic! >> just incredible. and this looks like another

great one. i've seen some of it. how do you begin to tackle george steinbrenner, this larger than life figure who's spanned, with the yankees, anyway, nearly four decades? >> well, i think what i was able to do was do it in a different way. i did it through generations. and our first day of shooting was when the old stadium closed and you heard generation after generation talking about their experiences, their bonding, and then that stadium closed. george passed the torch to hal. hal took over. the new stadium came up, and unfortunately, george passed away and the old stadium went down. >> and a lot of what you talk about in the film is that transition from father to son, and what a weight to bear for hal steinbrenner and hank steinbrenner. how has that weighed on them? >> i think they're their own people. and hal says he will never be

george. he believes in, you know, numbers. he's very introverted, he's not comfortable in front of a camera, but yet he's out there and he has the same love of baseball that his dad did. he just shows it in a more internal, introverted way. >> how did you choose to deal with the fact that more than a few people were upset. some remain upset, about the cost of the new stadium, to the city, to the taxpayers of the city, and to the residents of the bronx who were looking for playgrounds and stuff like that. how do you deal with that? >> well, we got a wonderful scene, which is a home run was hit and we're in the bleachers, the nose bleed area. and there's no tvs and it's totally blocked and all the people get up and they say, where did it go? tito hits a home run and we can't even find where it is. and they said, this isn't yankee, this isn't being loyal to the fans.

and i think when you say things by really seeing people formulate them, that's when that comes through. >> who was steinbrenner's favorite player, on a personal level? out of all three -- other than winfield, of course. who was his favorite player? >> i don't know, i think he sort of was fickle, but reggie jackson, he really stayed with him for a long time. but he -- whoever was winning. whoever was hitting. whoever was doing well, he liked. >> do you deal at all with the relationship, up and down relationship that he had with yogi berra? >> we have yogi in the film, but they do not discuss that up and down relationship, but we do have a list of all the managers that he had over all those years. >> i thought it was just a half-hour film. >> they go quick. >> some of them fired and re-hired in the same season. >> easy in, easy out. >> isn't it interesting, we were just talking about this in the break of how the impression of george steinbrenner has changed in the last couple of years since he became ill and then

especially since his death. i mean, he was reviled by a lot of people, and you don't hear much of that anymore. obviously, death does that, but what will his legacy be now, going forward? >> yeah, i think his legacy will be one that at any cost wanted to win. would put anything into the game to make sure that happened. he'd spend money and that was what was important. and he was doing it for the fans. >> one of the most interesting aspects of his character that i always found to be both amazing and not covered very well was the fact that he's mr. back page in new york, mr. bluster throughout major league baseball, a clearly dominating figure, and yet there are countless numbers of people who endured difficulty, whether medically with someone sick or something, and george steinbrenner would be there to help them. >> yeah, he'd jump in and the

only confidentiality would be that it could never be told that he helped them. he helped so many people. i think really what you're going to see in this film is the end of an old era, the beginning of a new one, and it's pretty sad and it's also pretty exciting. >> it looks great and you don't have to be a yankee fan to appreciate it. even if you're a red sox fan and you hated steinbrenner, these movies have been absolutely fantastic, week in, week out. >> but this is a universal film. if you care about a team and you care about people, you may want to see this. >> you'll laugh, you'll cry. >> is this the review? barbara, thanks so much. we appreciate you being here. the film is "the house of steinbrenner," it's on tonight,etonight, es espn, 8:00. check it out. coming up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? the thing i love most about zyrtec® is that it allows me to be outside. [ male announcer ] we bet you'll love zyrtec®, too -- or it's free. [ vonetta ] it is countdown to marshmallow time. [ woman laughs ]

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